I don't know about provincial, but federal MP's are "on break" this week. The poor bastards are exhausted, need a rest. Hang in there, Gord Johns. Only ten days 'til you get another raise.
According to Google, today is "International Day for the right to the truth". Gotta be a joke here somewhere, eh? , It just seems so unlikely, how could someone try to sell this concept? Please tell me who it is that has this "right" to what "truth"? And who are they expecting to get this "truth" from? Is there a place we line up? A form we need to complete? "Is there funding in the budget?" (not yet, giggled the "friends of friends") Will D.O.T. be hiring more office staff to manage a new "truth" department? A manager of truth and honesty. Probably. How are they ever going to find someone with any experience?
WASTE MONEY?? How about this. DOT is sponsoring a survey on the use of alcohol in the community. The district has absolutely no power, control, or authority whatsoever over the sale of alcohol or laws concerning its consumption. Liquor licences do not come from the district office. The one exception might be the control of open hours. Otherwise, it's provincial and federal. But there's a group of taxpayer funded people in the DOT office compiling a report of some sort about booze in Tofino. Another useless accumulation of paperwork that will never see any practical use. What is the purpose of the "study"? Who authorized this? What is it expected to provide in benefits to anyone, beside billable hours for district staff?
If you really want the facts about alcohol abuse in Tofino, be assured that nothing has changed. You can gather more data most mornings, around 10:15AM, alongside the CIBC or at Katie Monks park.
I have the answer to the question about the purpose of the study:
" The municipality says a community alcohol strategy can help determine “how alcohol use impacts health, safety and overall community well-being.”
“The goal of this work is to identify practical opportunities to reduce alcohol-related harms while recognizing that alcohol is part of many social settings and community experiences,” said the district.
So there you have it. Word salad. That is the end result.
The first thing that comes to my mind, is that an idea of a study about alcohol use abuse and social consequences is perhaps one of the dumbest things the district has ever come up with as a make work project for the DOT staff. I don't work for the district and I can tell you that about 75% of police work is cleaning up the alcohol mess, 90 to 95% of the social and domestic problems can be traced back to alcohol, an untold percentage of long term health problems for the hospital and the medical system in general, and finally the deleterious effect upon First Nations health and culture. no stupid dot study is going to hide the fact that the federal government and the province depend heavily upon the revenue from alcohol sales.
Changing the topic to something that is more relevant and something can be done about is water. It doesn't take a consultant to suggest to the district that all the water bills in the district are published so that everyone can see who is using four times or five times the water that should normally be consumed in an everyday household. It's bad enough that the hundreds of travel trailers, motorhomes, huts, and campers on single-family dwelling properties do not pay taxes, get permits, are not regulated by much of anything, and use as much water as they want. So there's no water to allow for building of single-family dwellings or other houses which would contribute to the tax base as improvements, permit fees, etc. Perhaps this would shame people into doing their civic duty and reduce consumption to what would be normal for a single-family dwelling property.
Every drop goes through a water meter, is measured, and billed at the highest rate in the country. No one is getting a free ride. Taking some sort of government control over a resource that there simply is not enough of will not increase the volume of the resource. That makes as much sense as paying carbon tax to fight climate change. I live in a house, so I got better rights than you, cause you live in a trailer. Divide! Us vs Them! Shame on "you people". ----Let's not go there, eh?
either there's reasonable rules for all residential property owners or not. It can't be rules for some and not others particularly those who profit from abusing reason and common sense. Paying for excess water use is chump change written off as the cost of doing business. This is not an attempt to pit one side against the other… The original affordable housing scheme was to create the opportunity for affordable ownership of residential property. What was created was short sighted and does not benefit people who want to live here permanently with with a sense of community.
10 comments:
I don't know about provincial, but federal MP's are "on break" this week. The poor bastards are exhausted, need a rest.
Hang in there, Gord Johns. Only ten days 'til you get another raise.
According to Google, today is "International Day for the right to the truth". Gotta be a joke here somewhere, eh? ,
It just seems so unlikely, how could someone try to sell this concept? Please tell me who it is that has this "right" to what "truth"? And who are they expecting to get this "truth" from? Is there a place we line up? A form we need to complete? "Is there funding in the budget?" (not yet, giggled the "friends of friends")
Will D.O.T. be hiring more office staff to manage a new "truth" department? A manager of truth and honesty. Probably. How are they ever going to find someone with any experience?
WASTE MONEY?? How about this. DOT is sponsoring a survey on the use of alcohol in the community.
The district has absolutely no power, control, or authority whatsoever over the sale of alcohol or laws concerning its consumption. Liquor licences do not come from the district office. The one exception might be the control of open hours. Otherwise, it's provincial and federal.
But there's a group of taxpayer funded people in the DOT office compiling a report of some sort about booze in Tofino. Another useless accumulation of paperwork that will never see any practical use. What is the purpose of the "study"? Who authorized this? What is it expected to provide in benefits to anyone, beside billable hours for district staff?
If you really want the facts about alcohol abuse in Tofino, be assured that nothing has changed. You can gather more data most mornings, around 10:15AM, alongside the CIBC or at Katie Monks park.
I have the answer to the question about the purpose of the study:
" The municipality says a community alcohol strategy can help determine “how alcohol use impacts health, safety and overall community well-being.”
“The goal of this work is to identify practical opportunities to reduce alcohol-related harms while recognizing that alcohol is part of many social settings and community experiences,” said the district.
So there you have it. Word salad. That is the end result.
The first thing that comes to my mind, is that an idea of a study about alcohol use abuse and social consequences is perhaps one of the dumbest things the district has ever come up with as a make work project for the DOT staff. I don't work for the district and I can tell you that about 75% of police work is cleaning up the alcohol mess, 90 to 95% of the social and domestic problems can be traced back to alcohol, an untold percentage of long term health problems for the hospital and the medical system in general, and finally the deleterious effect upon First Nations health and culture. no stupid dot study is going to hide the fact that the federal government and the province depend heavily upon the revenue from alcohol sales.
Eby is about to transform the economy by leading the world in the construction of sunlight factories!!
Councillor Steere’s pet project
Changing the topic to something that is more relevant and something can be done about is water. It doesn't take a consultant to suggest to the district that all the water bills in the district are published so that everyone can see who is using four times or five times the water that should normally be consumed in an everyday household. It's bad enough that the hundreds of travel trailers, motorhomes, huts, and campers on single-family dwelling properties do not pay taxes, get permits, are not regulated by much of anything, and use as much water as they want. So there's no water to allow for building of single-family dwellings or other houses which would contribute to the tax base as improvements, permit fees, etc. Perhaps this would shame people into doing their civic duty and reduce consumption to what would be normal for a single-family dwelling property.
Every drop goes through a water meter, is measured, and billed at the highest rate in the country. No one is getting a free ride.
Taking some sort of government control over a resource that there simply is not enough of will not increase the volume of the resource. That makes as much sense as paying carbon tax to fight climate change.
I live in a house, so I got better rights than you, cause you live in a trailer. Divide! Us vs Them! Shame on "you people". ----Let's not go there, eh?
either there's reasonable rules for all residential property owners or not. It can't be rules for some and not others particularly those who profit from abusing reason and common sense. Paying for excess water use is chump change written off as the cost of doing business. This is not an attempt to pit one side against the other… The original affordable housing scheme was to create the opportunity for affordable ownership of residential property. What was created was short sighted and does not benefit people who want to live here permanently with with a sense of community.
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